Book and method of binding the same



H. ZASLAWSKY 2,343,120

BOOK AND METHOD OF BINDING THE SAME Filed July 24. 1942' 2 2&

Feb. 29, 1944.

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' noon AND METHOD or BINDING THE SAME Hyman Zaslawsky, Los Angeles, Calif., asslgnor of one-half to Philip V. Spinner, Chicago, Ill.

Application July 24, 1942, Serial No. 452,215

4 Claims. (Cl. 281-21),

This invention relates to books and method of making the same. More particularly, it relates to books of the type comprising one or more signatures the pages of each of which are secured together and the signatures also secured together without the aid of stitching,

that the sharp cuts at the folded portion of each i .20 These slits allow the glue to signature be of considerable width to form gap ing open slits. flow into the spaces between adjacent sheets. The glue thus covers an appreciable part of the surface area immediately surrounding the gap-- ing open slits to secure the paper' together. The moisture of the glue warps the pages at each open slit, thus increasing the thickness of the book. Also there is no control over the extent to which the glue will flow through the open slits. The glue thus concentrates in some places to produce wrinkles, or otherwise distort. the paper .at and adjacent the slits.' As a consequence the resulting book, pamphlet or magazine bound by such methods is unsightly in appearance. to such books or pamphlets of a comparatively small-number of pages. I

It is one of the objects of the present invention to provide a method of binding books, pamphlets, magazines or the like which will overcomegthe objections heretofore inherent in the Furthermore, such process is limited.

gaping open slit type of pasted book, and yet which will have the economy of that type of book by the elimination of the stitching or stapling of the sheets or signatures together.

In accordance with the principles of the present invention a sheet of paper that is to be folded to form a signature, or a stack of such sheets that-are to be folded to form a signature, are so operated upon while the sheet or sheets are passing through the folding machine as to produce a resulting signature in which the pages can be glued together and a plurality of such signatures can be glued together along the very edge of the folded signature.

In accordance with a preferred method of practicing the present invention a discontinuous series of aligned tears or tear lines are formed inthe signature immediately before the last fold is to be formed and along the line of the last fold to be formed. Thereafter the sheet or sheets is folded in the usual manner to form the signature. The tear lines are rough edged and thus produce a series of exposed raw edges of the sheet where the sheet has been torn instead of punched or cut. A plurality of such signatures may then be stacked together and coated with glue or another suitable adherent along the edge to be bound. The raw torn edges of the paper act as blotters to absorb the glue, with the result that the pages are secured together along their torn edges with substantially no penetration of the glue into the space between adjacent sheets.

In order to provide a maximum length of torn edge for the glue the lines of tear are preferably made quite long in comparison with the distance between adjacent tear lines. In one preferred construction the paper was torn along lines of tear approximately seven-eighths of an inch in length and spaced apart less than oneeighth of an inch.

The attainment of the above and further objects of the present invention will be apparent from the following specification taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawing form- Figure 6 is an enlarged perspective view of a portion of the sheet immediately prior to the formation of the last fold to complete the Signature:

Figure 7 is a sectional view through one of the signatures;

Figure 8 is a perspective view of a signature constructed in accordance with thepresent invention;

Figure 9 is a perspective view of a stack of signatures'such as shown in Figure 8, preparatory to gluing of the signatures together: and

Figure 10 is a fragmentary sectional view through theback of a book constructed in accordance with the present invention.

Reference may now be had to Figures 1, 2 and 3. l is a sheet of paper having printed matter 2 on both sides thereof and of such interrelation that when the sheet is properly folded to form the signature the proper pages will appear in the correct sequence. The sheet illustrated in Figure 1, for instance, contains sixteen pages of printed matter, eight on each side. The sheet of Figure 1 is folded along a dotted line 3 to produce the sheet of Figure 2. The folded sheet of Figure 2 is then tom or perforated to produce a series of discontinuous perforations l spaced apart. These perforations are in alignment and located centrally of the sheet. The sheet is then folded along the line 4. The perforations 4 are for the purpose of facilitating the escape of air from between the layers of the sheet in the next folding operation, as is well known in the art. These perforations may be of any other shape, and per se form no part of the present invention. When the sheet of Figure 2 has been folded along the line 4 the next operation is then to be performed. Thisoperation consists in forming tear lines 5-5 in alignment with one another half way between the ends of the sheet and spaced apart by narrow spaces 8-4. Figure 6 shows, in enlargement, the tear lines 5-5 and the hinge spaces 6 between adjacent tear lines. It is important that the line at 5 be a line of tear producing a rough edge, as distinguished from a punched out or a cut hole.

The rough edged tear 5 is formed in the following manner: The folded sheet of Figure 3 is conveyed in the folding machine past a shaft l where the sheet makes a 90 turn, and then to a pair of folding rollers ll-I2 where the folded 'sheet 9 of Figure 3 is to be folded. This is one usual type of folding machine. The shaft III is power driven and includes a plurality of gripping driving rings l4-ll, generally made of rubber or the like, which grip the partiallyfolded sheet 9 and move it through an angle of 90, between the rings l4 and similar rings on a lower shaft l sim ilar to the shaft Ill. The shaft III has one tearing cutter l6 thereon. This tearing cutter consists of a saw tooth paper cutting ring of an external diameter slightly greater than the external diameter I of the rollers H and having a series of notches I! between the saw teeth It so that no cutting or tearing action occurs at the place where the notches ll engage the paper 9. In one preferred construction the rollers l4 were one and one-half inches in diameter and the cutter It was of a diameter one-quarter inch greater than that of i the rollers. The shaft I5 is power driven at the same speed as the shaft l0 and carries in addition to the rollers H a ring 'having a peripheral groove 2| therein for receiving the teeth It of the cutter l6. .As the folded sheets of paper 9 are gripped between the rollers ll-H of the two shafts Ill-l5 the paper 9 is advanced at a linear speed determined by the speed of rotation of the power driven shafts ll|i5. The linear speed of ,the paper is, of course, equal to the linear speed of the periphery of the rollers l4 that are'driving the paper. Since the cutter I6 is keyed to the shaft Ill and is of slightly greater diameter than the diameter of the rollers ll, the linear speed of the periphery of the cutter is slightly greater than the linear speed of the paper 9. The saw teeth l8 first cut into the paper to produce a series of perforations in the paper. As the paper. then advances at a rate of speed slightly less than the linear speed of the saw teeth It these teeth then tear the paper between adjacent perforations formed by adiacent points of the serrations II. This produces a continuous tear in the paper from one portion ll of the cutter IE to the next portion ll, where the paper is not at all torn. This produces the untorn hinge parts 6-8 of the stack of paper. The cutter l6 thus produces a series oftears 5-5 as distinguished from a series of cuts, in the stack of paper.

The stack 9 then advances on the folding machine, in the usual manner, to a position above folding rollers ll-l2 at which position a blunt I edged pusher 22 starts the paper downwardly between the rollers to fold the signature. This produces the signature illustrated in Figure 8. It is to be noted that the gashes or cuts will be wedge-shaped in depth in the stack of paper, as illustrated in Figure 5. Each gash will be of a greater width at the top sheet of the stack than at the bottom sheet of the stack, being of an average width at approximately the center sheet of the stack. As the sheets are folded by the folder 22 the direction of fold is such that the top sheet of the stack of pages is on the inside of the fold. This tends to bring the edges of the gashes 4 together on those sheets that are above the center sheet, and apart on those sheets that are below the center sheet. Thus it is the narrow part of the wedge-shaped gash in the stack that is drawn apart and it is the wide part of the wedge-shaped gash that is brought together. By making the gash slightly wider on the sheets that are to be on the inside of the fold I reduce the tendency for crowding and accompanying wrinkling of the sheet on the inside of the folded sheets. The sheets of paper are shown folded along the hinges 8-6 leaving the exposed raw torn edges 5-5 of all of the sheets of the signature along the fold of the signature. In order that the exposed rough torn edges of the paper may extend for as great a length as possible the hinges 6-6 are made as narrow as possible. In one preferred construction the lines of tear 5-5 were each approximately seven-eighths of an inch in length and the length of each hinge ii in a direction in alignment with the line of tear 5 was slightly less than one-eighth of an inch.

A plurality of signatures such as shown in Figure 8 are stacked one upon another in the proper sequence, to produce a stack of signatures such as illustrated in Figure 9. It is to be noted that the hinge portions 6 of the respective signatures are not in alignment. This is an advantage and is due to the fact that there is no correlation of the initial position of the. stack of pages 9 in relation to the angular position of the cutter I 6 at the time the stack of pages are engaged by the rollers [4. While in Figure 9 the hinges or folds 6 are clearly discernible, it is apparent that in the stack of pages of Figure 9 they will not be readily discernible due to the fact that each signature is very thin and the distance between successive folds 6 of a signature is great in compariso to the thickness of the signature. After the signatures have been stacked, as shown in Figure 9. they are coated with a liquid glue. The rough frayed edges of the paper at the tear points 5 act more or less like blotters to absorb the glue and thus serve to secure the pages together.

After the pages have been secured together it is to be noted that if any one page is torn out of the book in such a manner as to break the glue bond between that page and its preceding and succeeding page, the book will not tend to come apart because the page which is adjacent that page which has been removed is then held in the signature by the folded portion 6 which extends around in the signature to a place remote from the place where the sheet was torn from the book.

After the book has been secured together by gluing, as in Figure 9, the paper or other cover 25 may be secured inplace by gluing it along the back 26 to the stack of signatures. While in Figure 10 this has been shown in the form of a flat back book or magazine of a plurality of signatures the binding may be in the form of a rounded backing and cover in a manner well known in the art.

In compliance with the requirements of the patent statutes I have here shown and described a preferred embodiment of my invention. It is, however, to be understood that the invention is not limited to the precise cqnstruction here shown, the same being merely illustrative of the principles of the invention. What I consider new and desire to secure by Letters Patent is:

1. In the binding 'art, the method of making a signature, which comprises providing a stack of paper sheets, forming a series of aligned spaced tear lines through the stack intermediate the liquid adherent to the fold line.

2. In the binding art, the method of making a signature which comprises moving a stack of sheets, forming a discontinuous series of aligned gashes in the sheets by rolling a rough edged perforator in cutting engagement with the sheets and at a linear peripheral velocity diiferent from the linear velocity of the stack of sheets so that the perforator tears the sheets to form a rough edged tear at the place of perforation, then folding the sheets along the line of the tears, thenapplying a liquid adherent along the line of the fold and the gashes.

3. A book comprising a stack of signatures each of which comprises a plurality of sheets of paper folded together and having a number of aligned raw edged gashes each extending through all of the sheets at the fold and with adjacent gashes of a signature spaced apart by a hinge portion, the hinge portions of the respective signatures being staggered with respect to one another, and a cementitious adherent coating the edge of the stack of signatures and penetrating the signatures at the gashes.

4. A book comprising a stack of signatures eachpf which comprises a plurality of sheets of paper folded together and having a number of aligned raw edged gashes at the fold each of the gashes extending through all of the sheets of the signature and with adjacent gashes of a signature spaced apart by a hinge portion of a length substantially .less than. half the length of the gash, the hinge portions of the respective signatures being staggered with respect to one another, and a cementitious adherent coating the edge of the stack of signatures and penetrating the signatures at the gashes.

HYMAN ZASLAWSKY. 

